Genre : Deathgrind
Label : Metal Blade Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.0 / 10
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Cattle Decapitation's Monolith of Inhumanity is the evolution of deathgrind as it describes the devolution of humanity. The album sounds to me like a concept record AND a totally-completely ripe at that, with strong and relentless focus kept on the subject matter it seeks to thoroughly examine and immerse the listener into. The subject matter is none other than the title of one of the tracks suggests, as well. It is "A Living, Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat" - AKA you and me - and the suggested anti-value of said construct - human - if and when it suddenly would choose to reject the aspiration of self-development altogether, submitting instead to stimulate its physical senses, exclusively. In a nano-nutshell, that is the concept reigning at the core of the de-evolution of human, and the latest Cattle Decapitation disk indeed is a testament of this process written in blood to the surface of the titular Monolith of Inhumanity. The concept itself is a probable tribute to Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, see : - quite literally - 2001 - a Space Odyssey. How many weeks you think it would take to degenerate a perfectly valid high tech civilization to a shit-and-garbage heap the aggressive neo-neanderthal/enthusiastic Noise Shaft reader depicted on the cover ravages on? 28 weeks? Days, maybe? A superb thing about the whole affair is that it does not rely on cartoon lyrics - "I will beat you to death with the severed head of your child, as a start" and whatnot - and emerges instead to strike up a relevant narrative tone, courtesy of exigent, provocative thoughts, and I dare say that the lyrical content is strong enough to make the music bend to the will and power of its fueling thought-sentiments. Read on to find out more about this.
Make yourself comfortable with the sub-sentient parts of you that show no interest in things other than self-preservation and fucking in dominant fashion like there is no tomorrow, then witness how this related soul-content is immersed thoroughly in the meticulously realized HD shit in anaglyph 3D the record brings to you on a sonic register. Make no mistake, the disc is a rampant, glorious testament of both literal and metaphoric shit, and this is something that is very easy to overlook if you do not approach the contribution at face value, - oh God - which necessarily means the whole experience. Including amidst these stimuli : the lyrics. The music itself is top of the food chain meaty-muscular deathgrind with a reoccurring tendency to flatter technical death metal lamentations, but never to the degree that would necessitate a TDM genre tag I can back up with a face in the company of such robust sonic statements of intricacy than the premiere technical death metal releases I am privileged enough to know so far. This and this and this, for example. Heavy duty jackhammer blastbeat tempos are not the name of the intensity herein, it is "just" the normal character of the music on display, which though exhibits tendencies to deviate through abrupt/efficient sonic sequences that seek to explore neighboring frequency domains and intriguingly demented and/or lobotomized rhythms.
No matter what kind of-, and how devoted of a deathgrind fan you are, eventually the disc will make you submit and will take this opportunity to beat you into a miserable excuse for a Swedish meatball in its fractal-scattered totality, and only THEN it will bring out the heavy weaponry, now having you at its disposal in your very best warmed up form. The fabric of the music exhibits zero propensity to ease up in character for about 85% of its playtime, - which weighs in as top tier silence assault, make no mistake - but, this remaining 15% is essential to experience, provided you want to possess a ripe opinion of the whole package that transcends the quality of the superficial overall impression cultivated and expressed by any disgusting person who is analcunt enough to review music. The chorus of concluding track, "Kingdom of Tyrants", while it reeks in its chorus-anatomy that it was inspired by the "28 Weeks Later" soundtrack, also draws the attention to the fact that the disc has a reoccurring tendency to offer clearly identifiable structural elements, but, bear in mind that the act of repetition of these is much scarcer than what you would expect from a more standard ethos of music creation. The clean singing - don't run away - is pretty efficient on the disc. The lead singer is effected beyond recognition, but who gives a shit, if it sounds to reflect the intention? The intention was to turn Corey Taylor into a zombie and make him sing about what is up inside, and it is pretty cool. The track called "Lifestalker" has a sequence like this, for example.
Please heed my related words : Cattle Decapitation - Monolith of Inhumanity has lyrical content that is essential to check out WITH the music. Same deal with Meshuggah. Don't whine about a Meshuggah track if you did not yet listen to it with lyrics, I'm begging you. All in all, I'm going to say this : the disc is a pretty rewarding listen, and, in my opinion it immediately claims a legitimate spot as one of the perfect candidates to shock yourself whenever you are curious of a new method silence gets slaughtered with.
And, just for the record : silence looks and sounds especially badass after this record.
Rating : 9.0 / 10
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